Which funding products does this apply to?

Working Capital, Term Loan, Business Line of Credit, Invoice Financing, Asset-Based Lending. Each has its own page listing the funders in this directory that offer it and what each one publishes about its terms.

Is this specific to professional services?

It is written around how a professional service business actually generates and collects cash, which is what makes its funding problem different. The mechanics transfer; the arithmetic may not.

The Find Me Funders research desk. Some drafting is AI-assisted, and every page that is says so at the top, including whether a person has checked its claims yet.

How do I know a figure here is right?

Where a page carries the green notice, its claims were checked against the sources listed at the end and a reviewer is named. Where it carries the amber one, nobody has verified it yet and you should confirm anything you plan to act on.

Are the examples real deals?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What any particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it.

Why do you never say what a typical rate is?

Because we cannot source it. A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it. Where a lender publishes a figure, we show that figure and say where it came from.

Is this financial or legal advice?

No. It is general information about how these products work. Outcomes depend on your contract and your state, and a lawyer or accountant licensed where you are is the person to ask about your situation.

Can I reuse this content?

Quote a paragraph with a link back. Do not republish whole articles.

Can you borrow against unbilled work in progress?

Rarely, and never on good terms. The faster route to the same cash is to stop having so much of it.

By Find Me Funders research desk Updated 14 September 2026 1136 words 5 min read

Drafted with AI assistance. Not yet independently checked. Nobody has verified the claims on this page against a source, so treat the figures and legal points as a starting point rather than as settled, and confirm anything you are about to act on. How we check things.

Can I borrow against unbilled work in progress?

In most cases no. Unbilled work in progress is your own valuation of work the client has not been asked to pay for and has not agreed to, so it cannot be assigned like an invoice and has almost no value to a third party. Some asset-based facilities will include a small, heavily discounted WIP component where engagement letters and billing history are strong, but the working assumption should be exclusion. The reliable fix is operational: bill more frequently, take retainers, bill milestones when they occur, and convert WIP into receivables you can actually finance.

Unbilled work in progress is not a receivable. Everything else follows from that.

Why it is not fundable

A receivable is an agreed obligation: you performed, you invoiced, the client received it and did not dispute it. It can be assigned, and the assignee can collect it.

Unbilled WIP is one step earlier — your record of time or effort, at your own rates, for work the client has not been asked to pay for and has not accepted. Three problems follow.

It has not been agreed.Until billed and unchallenged, the amount is your estimate, and clients query invoices at the moment of billing.

It cannot be assigned cleanly.There is no invoice to notify and no obligation to redirect. A funder cannot collect it unless you bill it first, and if you are in trouble by then the billing may not happen.

It has essentially no liquidation value.Half-finished professional work is worth nothing to anyone but the client it was done for, and often not much to them.

The narrow exceptions

Larger asset-based facilities.Some lenders include a modest WIP component in a borrowing base at a low advance rate, where engagement letters clearly establish the right to bill for work performed, the billing history is long and consistent, and realisation is high and documented. That is a feature of sizeable facilities, not small-business lending.

Contractual milestone rights.If your engagement letter gives an unconditional right to bill on a defined event that has already occurred, that is much closer to a receivable, and some lenders treat it accordingly. A right to bill that has crystallised is a different asset from time sitting in a timesheet.

Litigation funding in contingency practice is a separate market with its own economics, not a general answer here.

What to do instead, in order of effect

Bill more often.Moving your largest engagements from monthly to fortnightly billing takes weeks out of the cycle firm-wide and costs nothing but discipline. It usually beats any financing product on the table.

Take retainers and advance payments.Standard in several professions and acceptable to clients if it is in the engagement letter from the start. Retainer money is the cheapest working capital a firm that sells time can get.

Bill milestones when they occur.Put the trigger in the engagement letter and bill on it.

Fix the write-off problem.Realisation multiplies everything, and unagreed scope creep is unfunded lending to your client.

Chase earlier.A call on day 31 collects more than a letter on day 61.

Then finance the receivables you created — a solved problem: a line of credit against the billing cycle.

What faster billing is actually worth

Illustrative only —a firm billing $4,800,000 a year on a monthly cycle. Work performed on the 2nd is not invoiced until the 30th, so the average piece of work waits about fifteen days to be billed and then about thirty-five days to be paid: fifty days between doing the work and holding the cash.

At $4,800,000 a year, one day of that cycle is about $13,151. Fifty days ties up roughly $657,534.

Move to fortnightly billing and the average wait to invoice halves to about 7.5 days. The cycle becomes 42.5 days and the cash tied up falls to about $558,904 — roughly $98,630 released, permanently, at no cost and with no covenant attached.

Compare that to what a facility of the same size would cost over a year. Then notice the second effect: the billing change also converts that cash into receivables, which are financeable, whereas the WIP never was.

If a lender does include WIP

Ask about the mechanics in the same terms you would use for receivables, because it is the same machinery applied to a weaker asset.

What is the advance rate on WIP, separately from the rate on billed receivables? Expect a wide gap.
Is there a cap, in dollars or as a share of the total base? A WIP component is normally capped tightly.
What ages out? Unbilled time that has sat for months is the part a lender trusts least, and an aging cut-off on WIP is common.
What evidence is required at each certificate? Time records tied to an engagement letter, not a management estimate.
What happens when you write some off? A write-off after inclusion reduces availability immediately, and sometimes attracts a reserve on top.

If you have already done all of that

You are looking at cash-flow lending rather than asset lending — a line or term loan underwritten on revenue stability, client concentration and debt service coverage, with personal guarantees. That is an ordinary thing to have, priced on the firm rather than the WIP.

The cases that catch firms out

A partner who will not bill.Every firm has one, and the unbilled balance concentrates in their matters. That is a management problem sitting inside a financing conversation, and no lender will fund around it.

Fixed-fee work payable on completion.If the fee is not payable until the engagement finishes, there is no right to bill anything before then, so there is nothing for a lender to attach to — however much time is recorded.

A client on 90-day terms.Faster billing does not fix a slow payer. Bill fortnightly and you still wait ninety days; you have simply started the clock earlier. That remaining gap is a receivables financing question, and it has an answer.

Contingency and success fees.Not WIP in any fundable sense, because the right to be paid depends on an outcome nobody controls.

A partner who will not guarantee.Cash-flow lending at this size takes personal guarantees from the principals. If one will not sign, find out before the application rather than at closing, because it changes which lenders are available and sometimes the structure itself.

What to have ready

Aged receivables and unbilled WIP, shown separately
Realisation rate for the last two years, and write-off history with reasons
Engagement letters for your largest clients
Client concentration by percentage of fees
Firm financials and tax returns, plus personal ones for guarantors

What to ask, and what to refuse

Ask any lender whether WIP is in the borrowing base, at what advance rate, and on what evidence. Get the answer before commissioning an appraisal or field examination, because those cost money and are not refundable.

Refuse to pay a fee for a facility that excludes the only asset you were trying to finance. Refuse a daily-repayment product against a monthly collection cycle. And refuse to treat unbilled WIP as a receivable in your own forecasting; it is the number most likely to make a firm believe it is more liquid than it is.

Where this applies